


Revelation 13:1

by Steerpike13713



Series: Morningstar Family Values [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018), Lucifer (TV)
Genre: (for both 'verses), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anticlimax, Demon Summoning, Dialogue Heavy, Episode: s02e09 Chapter Twenty: The Mephisto Waltz, Everybody Wants To End The World, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Lucifer's parental issues, Lucifer's worship issues, Pre-Episode s02e14 Candy Morningstar, Sort of? - Freeform, Zelda Spellman deserves better than this shit, accidental parent acquisition, identity theft, the beginnings thereof at least, the whole apocalypse thing is a bit distracting, world's most awkward family reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21553915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steerpike13713/pseuds/Steerpike13713
Summary: “Edward and Diana...Spellman, I’m assuming?” That was Lucifer again. Sabrina wasn’t sure, at this point, that he was physically capable of leaving well enough alone. “So, that’s where I knew the name from.”The assembled Spellmans all blinked at him.“You...knew my parents?” Sabrina asked, because she had to. She had to know.“Well- Naturally,” Aunt Zelda said, drawing herself up like a hen resettling its feathers. “Edward was High Priest of the Church of Night. He- We were always led to believe he had a direct line to-”“...no, don’t remember any of that,” Lucifer interrupted. “Tall man, beard, rather marvellous shoulders? I remember him. And Diana too, of course. Lovely couple. Very flexible.”
Relationships: Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) & Sabrina Spellman
Series: Morningstar Family Values [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561111
Comments: 64
Kudos: 959
Collections: Crossovers and Fusion Fics, Fics to Live For (In BrytteM's Opinion), One shots, Shady Crossover Faves





	Revelation 13:1

The thing about summonings is, they are, by definition, inconvenient. One minute you’re really getting into something - a good shag, a strong drink, your evening set on the piano at Lux - and the next, you’re stumbling out of a mineshaft in Massachusetts with no idea where you are, what you’re doing there or who could have summoned you across more-or-less the entire continental US just to dump you in a dark, noisome and frankly creepy mine in the middle of a forest.

And the evening had started out so _well_.

All right, perhaps ‘well’ was an overstatement. He’d been in Vegas, drinking and not, no matter what Linda would have said on the matter if she’d been there, _moping_ . He’d been _planning_ \- specifically, planning to drink himself into a stupor before coming up with some kind of scheme to find out what his Mother was up to - and then he’d been in the dark, and the dirt and, the GPS on his phone informed him, outside a postage stamp of a town called ‘Greendale’ somewhere in one of the various New England states that Lucifer had never found it worth his while to keep straight in his head.

Lucifer was not, by and large, a fan of forests. Or mineshafts, if it came to it. Nature in general left him quite cold, to be honest. Oh, he’d had a hand in designing some of it, but all this greenery and damp and wildlife had never been his thing even then. Lucifer’s passion project had been _stars_ , and, as was his wont, he’d gotten absorbed in them, to the point where he hadn’t really paid much attention to what the rest of the family was getting up to down on the ground. If he had known, he’d have recommended less of all this green, damp, _organic_ stuff. Lucifer Morningstar was a creature meant for _cities_ , thank you very much. One of the better innovations the humans had come up with, cities. He was altogether in favour of nature in its place - that was, well away from _him_ \- but he’d never felt the urge to go and root around in it.

Lucifer squelched miserably through the cold woods, trying very hard not to think about what all this mud and leaf-mould would do to his shoes. He could get more shoes when he reached civilisation. Even if he _had_ liked this particular pair. You couldn’t get men's shoes from this designer in the normal run of things, and now he’d have to use up another favour to get replacements. Equally hard to avoid was the thought of how he had ended up here. Oh, there were ways of summoning him, though not nearly as many as popular imagination would suggest, but they all involved rather more in the way of candles, chanting and occasional blood sacrifice than seemed to have been the case here. It smacked of his Father’s interference, although why the miserable bastard chose to dump him in rural New England instead of Hell this time, Lucifer had no idea. It wasn’t as though Lucifer couldn’t get _back_ from New England, eventually. Unless that was the plan. Stop him from letting Chloe go, breaking her ties to him, letting her be. Couldn’t have Lucifer interfering with the Plan again, never mind that that was the whole reason he’d walked away in the first place. He’d thought, by leaving Hell, by coming to LA, he was defying Dad’s Plan, but all the time, he’d just been walking straight into it. Well, no more of that for him. Massachusetts wasn’t Las Vegas, but even a town this small had to have somewhere for the occupants to drown themselves in cheap liquor at the end of the week. It was probably the only way to stave off the self-harm.

That particular prediction, at least, proved true. Although quite who it was that decided to build a bar out in the middle of the woods, Lucifer had no idea. It looked like nothing so much as an old-fashioned townhouse had been plucked up from the middle of a row of them and plonked down carelessly in the middle of a dark, creepy and apparently unpopulated forest. Because that wasn’t suspicious at all. He briefly considered the theory that his Father might have stopped being a bastard just long enough to drop a convenient nightspot in Lucifer’s path, and discarded it. If all his Father wanted him to do was get blitzed, Lucifer could’ve done that perfectly well, and much more profitably, in Vegas, thank Him very much.

The discreet little brass plaque beside the door announced the place as ‘Dorian’s Gray Room’. Nice touch. Apparently someone around here had a taste for Wilde. And, as depictions of the ‘soul-selling’ process that humans were so hung up on went, it wasn’t the worst out there. If Lucifer had ever possessed any interest in moving further south, ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ would certainly have put him off. No bouncer at the door, and no line outside - what time was it supposed to be in New England, again? The position of the sun was no use here, in the woods, where the trees grew so closely together that they all but blotted out the sky. And the time difference wasn’t much use, because he’d lost track of time in Vegas before this mess ever got started. One of the few downsides of drinking oneself into a stupor, clearly. 

Then again, the lack of any sign of life outside might not have been anything to do with the time of day - even leaving aside how much nature one had to slog through to get here, the interior did _not_ make this look like the hottest nightspot around. The place was so thoroughly panelled that it felt like being inside a box, with brass fittings and velvet upholstery - Victorian, in a word. Apparently someone had a theme they were playing into. On the bright side, though, the place was turned out well enough that they might actually have decent alcohol on hand. The bartender was every bit as on-brand as the name and the decor - a prettyish man somewhere in his twenties with curly blonde hair, fully decked out in the finest of late-Victorian menswear.

“Dorian, I presume?” Lucifer couldn’t resist asking, as he threw himself into one of the barstools.

“You presume correctly,” the man replied, smiling widely and, to his credit, not making any sort of reference to Lucifer knowing his Oscar Wilde. “Just passing through town, stranger?”

“Hoping to leave it and get back to civilisation as soon as possible.” He looked over the bottles stacked behind the bar - well. He had clearly underestimated the comforts of small towns in the middle of nowhere, if they stocked some of this stuff. Most of the vintages were old, which fit with the decor and the theme, and all of them were eye-wateringly valuable. Whether any of them were actually drinkable after that long was another question, but it was a very impressive rack nonetheless.

‘Dorian’s’ mouth twitched a little, his eyes roving appreciatively up and down. “Well, I wish you the best of luck doing so, Mr…?”

“Lucifer. Morningstar.” 

_That_ got a reaction, but not quite the one Lucifer had expected. ‘Dorian’ straightened out like he’d just had an iron bar jammed up him, his colouring going from ‘peaches and cream’ to ‘off milk’ in the space of about two seconds.

“Dark Lord,” he gasped out, shaking, knotting his hands together in front of him, his gaze falling to the floor.

“...come again?”

“Forgive me, you look-”  
Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Devilishly handsome, I know. Still, that’s no reason to go around grovelling.”

“I live only to serve you, my lord,” ‘Dorian’ said - nearly whispered, really - and Lucifer’s day went even further downhill.

“ _Trust_ me,” he gritted out. “You don’t. Free will? I invented it? Last I heard, it was important to you people. Bad enough to bring worship into things, but don’t tell me you left that bit out.”

“Dark Lord?” ‘Dorian’ asked, blinking up at him. Lucifer glared.

“Quit. It. I’m not the master of your soul or anyone else’s, so sod off - and, before you sod off, I’d like a whiskey. I’m not nearly drunk enough to deal with any of this yet.”

‘Dorian’ blinked again, looking rather as if he’d just been bludgeoned over the head. “A- I mean, yes, at once, my lord.”

That was probably as close to quitting it as Lucifer was going to get. He would _definitely_ need to find somewhere else to drink until he got his bearings and got out of here - wherever that was. The whiskey would almost certainly be worse, but there was only so much of this shite a devil could be expected to put up with.

“Well,” said a horribly familiar voice from somewhere behind him. “This wasn’t quite the reception I had planned.”

He looked around. There was a woman standing in the curtained archway at the far side of the room. Not a woman he recognised, he thought for a moment, but then she raised her chin, and he knew her.  
“Lilith?” he said, startled. “What are you doing here?”

Lilith didn’t move. She seemed...almost nervous. And that was wrong - nobody had ever frightened Lilith, not since the moment Lucifer had first met her, newly cast out and trying to survive in the wilderness. It had been the thing he’d liked most about her. They’d gone off one another fairly spectacularly thereafter, but seeing her _cowed_ was sickening.

“I’ve been busy. Preparing the way.”

Well, _that_ didn’t sound ominous at all.

“Preparing the-” he cut himself off. “Are you _possessing_ that human?”

She actually had the gall to look taken aback at that. “I- Yes-”

“Then you can bloody well get out of her right this minute! You _know_ my rules on possession, Lilith. All of Hell knows what I said I’d do to the next demon I caught at it.”

She was gaping at him now, even as he downed the last of his whiskey and stalked across the room to her. 

“I have only done as You commanded!” Lilith hissed, putting a hand out as if to push at him as he closed the distance between them, before pulling back at the last moment.

Lucifer snorted, mirthless, “Oh, don’t start with me. You’ve never done as _anyone_ commanded. You wouldn’t do it for Dad, you wouldn’t do it for me. And even if you would, I haven’t _asked_ you to do anything in...how long since we last saw each other? A millennium? Two?”

“I am Your loyal servant,” Lilith said - lied, it couldn’t be anything but a lie. Lilith, mother of demons, was many things, but a _servant_ was one thing she would never be - with an odd, fixed look about her. “Which is why,” she went on, slinking around him and across to the bar, “I find it so...so _galling_...that the throne You promised me, the crown You assured me I’d be wearing, and soon, that those things are going to Sabrina Spellman, and not me.”

He honestly had no answer for that one, though he did have quite a lot of questions about it. They started with ‘who?’, continued through ‘what throne?’ and ‘what crown?’ before finishing up with ‘why are you talking about me in capital letters?’

Instead of asking any of those perfectly sensible questions, however, he raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t under the impression I’d _promised_ you anything. At least, not recently.”

Furthermore, he’d gone to enormous lengths to repay the one favour he had ever owed Lilith, and was in no hurry to ever be indebted to her for anything again, and even if he hadn’t been, Lucifer _never_ forgot a debt.

Lilith looked for a moment as if she’d been slapped, before all the blood drained from her face. 

“...no. My Lord,” she said, formally. “I- I will bring you the Spellman girl. Your Queen.”

Lucifer reeled back, staring. “My _what_? Lilith-!”

Lilith had already turned on her heel and was leaving. It would have been trivial to catch up with her, but Lucifer felt rooted to the spot. What in Dad’s name was going on? And what, more pressingly, did it have to do with _him_.

Lilith wasn’t an entity to blame other people for her own handiwork. Nor would he have ever have said before that she’d ever lower herself to even _pretend_ to be the subordinate partner in a scheme.

And she’d acted as if Lucifer had ordered this - whatever ‘this’ was - in order to...what? All he had was the name ‘Sabrina Spellman’, which left an odd, familiar prickle at the back of Lucifer’s mind, and the fact that Lilith was apparently furiously jealous of her for no immediately apparent reason, and convinced that Lucifer intended to a) marry the poor woman and b) compound her miseries by making her Queen of Hell. But if Lilith thought this was his order...then someone had given her that impression.

‘Dorian’ the bartender was still behind the bar when Lucifer turned on him. The smirk slid clean off his face when he met Lucifer’s eyes, though he stood his ground as Lucifer stormed over the bar.

“All _right_ ,” he said through his teeth. “You overheard all that, and, more interesting, you seemed to understand at least half of it. So. Explanations, please? Starting with who Sabrina Spellman is, and why I’d be interested.”

The answer, it turned out, was ‘nobody in particular’ and ‘no idea’. A little witchling who’d recently started to manifest some interesting powers, but quite how that qualified anyone for the job of ‘Queen of Hell’, even if Lucifer had been a) looking or b) the sort of person who would take advantage of youth and inexperience, he had no idea.

The ‘witchcraft’ bit at least explained the performance when he’d come into the bar. Lucifer was not, by and large, a fan of witches. Nothing against most of them as individuals, but somewhere along the line they’d got it into their heads that, since Dad didn’t like them on principle, they might as well worship his polar opposite, and due to centuries of human imagination twisting the facts beyond all recognition, that meant him. Some of the demons even liked to encourage them, though Lucifer had done his best to tamp down on the practice. The last thing he had needed or wanted was _more_ people arriving in hell bewildered and wondering why they were being tortured when they had done him such good service up on Earth - as if Lucifer had ever said anything suggesting that he wanted people to ritually kill and eat each other to win his approval.

So. Someone - some demon, and one of the more powerful ones, to be able to convincingly pose as him - was going around calling himself Lucifer for, so far as he could tell, the sole purpose of getting one teenage witch into bed with him. And, unlike the last person who tried that, this one didn’t even have the excuse of being human and not knowing any better.

He didn’t think he could tolerate that, as a point of pride.

Lucifer drew back from the bar and smiled, showing teeth.

“All right. You’ve been useful. Now - Spellman.” Where did he remember that name from? He might’ve tortured a few of her ancestors in Hell, he supposed, but after a while you stopped remembering the names of the damned. “You have an address?”

He did, though precisely how much use that was going to be when they were stranded in the middle of the woods, Lucifer had no idea. But if Lilith was going to fetch this girl, then that was where she’d be going, and right now, Lilith probably had most of the answers about just what Lucifer’s impostor was trying to pull. A mortuary outside of town, and, according to ‘Dorian’, at least, not too far away, provided Lucifer ever found his way out of these woods.

He ‘borrowed’ the bottle of whiskey he’d started before he left, though, just in case. If he was going to be wandering these woods for the rest of eternity - which seemed, just now, not that much worse than going back to LA to deal with whatever new horrors his family had cooked up for him there - he’d rather do it drunk than sober.

* * *

There was a man waiting outside the mortuary when Sabrina got back. He was tall, even leaning against a gravestone, dark-haired and dressed in a beautifully-cut black suit. He was also barefoot, though a pair of badly-scuffed dress shoes sat at the foot of the gravestone, and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. Sabrina stared. Salem, at her feet, hissed and arched his back at the sight of the man, who had lowered his bottle at the sight of Sabrina.

“You’d be Sabrina Spellman, then?” he said, looking her up and down - not covetously, the way the Dark Lord had, at the Gray Room, but assessingly, as if she were a familiar he’d catalogue-ordered and wasn’t sure he’d got the best deal on. 

Sabrina crossed her arms and scowled at him. “Yeah. I would. Who’re you supposed to be?”

“Lucifer,” the man said, still eyeing her dubiously. “Morningstar.”

Sabrina went cold, all through. No. No, he _couldn’t_ have caught up with her again so quickly, and even if he had- This was not the sleek, smiling liar she had left at the Gray Room. She could not imagine that man here, in the graveyard out front from the mortuary, with a five o’clock shadow and a wrinkled suit, a bottle of whiskey clutched loosely in one hand.

“Not funny,” she said, low and furious.

“No,” the man agreed, “It isn’t. So, anyway, about this whole ‘Queen of Hell’ gig. Sorry if you had your heart set on the job, but I’m not really in the market for a consort.” Sabrina gawped at him, but the man just kept going without a moment’s pause. “I’m doing you a favour, really, it’s an awful job - terrible hours, no time off, the company isn’t anything to write home about - at least, not in a good way - and, frankly, you’re too young for me.”

“That’s not what you- he- was saying five minutes ago!” Sabrina snapped, anger boiling up from the pit of her stomach. “And I don’t _want_ the job! I _never_ wanted it!”

The man didn’t seem at all perturbed. “Well, that’s good. I do hate to raise false hopes. So, now that’s out of the way, who told you ‘Queen of Hell’ was on the table? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Lucifer Morningstar,” Sabrina said shortly. “The real one.”

The man bristled like an angry tomcat. “ _I’m_ the real one! Lucifer Morningstar, the one and bloody only!”

“Then who was the guy spouting all that ‘glorious ascension’ and ‘the world will be remade in Hell’s image’ and ‘there has only ever been one path for you, Sabrina’ shi- stuff?” she demanded. “Because that looked and sounded pretty much like the Dark Lord to me!”

“Swear or don’t swear, but be consistent about it,” the man said idly, “And that sounds much more like Dad’s sort of thing than anything I’d be involved with. All this ‘Great Plan’ and ‘there is only one path’ and putting people’s pronouns in capital letters. What happened to free will? I was given to understand it _mattered_ to you people.”

Sabrina’s eyes narrowed. “‘Us people’?”

“Satanists,” the man said easily, “I’m not one for worship - that sort of insecure nonsense is much more Dad’s line - but if you lot are going to insist on doing it, you might as well keep the important stuff in.”

Sabrina scoffed. “Oh, yeah, the Church of Night - or Judas or _whatever_ Father Blackwood is calling it now - is _so_ big on free will. Right up until it’s too late to back out and you’re stuck on the Path of Night with no choice but to obey! You think I’ve forgotten what he did to my friends, to my _cat-_?”

“What makes you think I have any idea what he did? I’ve been out of the infernal loop for six years!”

“Wait, what-”

Of course, that was the moment Auntie Zee chose to come barrelling out of the house with a spell on her fingertips and fury in her eyes.

“Get away from her, demon!”

“That’s _devil_ ,” the man said irritably, looking around. He seemed quite unconcerned with the possibility of Aunt Zelda frying him where he stood, which was just another point against him, so far as Sabrina was concerned. He blinked, however, as Aunt Hilda and Ambrose followed Aunt Zelda out onto the porch. “...I know you, don’t I? Antoinette, right? Or - What was your first name again? Helga?”

“Hilda,” Aunt Hilda corrected, sounding slightly punch-drunk. “And you’re- Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue…”

“Lucifer. Morningstar. Been a while, hasn’t it?”

Auntie Zee’s lips pressed together into a firm line. “You know this…person...Hilda?”

“I- No, I mean, I wouldn’t say _know_ ,” Aunt Hilda said hurriedly, “We just met one time at a party in...oh, it must’ve been nineteen-something-or-other - on the ship back to New York, you know? Before all that business with the iceberg and poor Mr Andrews…He had this party trick with getting people to admit to all the things they really wanted but could never admit to publicly…”

“It’s not a _party trick_ ,” the man huffed. “And we’re getting sidetracked. Which normally I’d be all in favour of, but not when I’ve got an _impostor_ to deal with.”

Aunt Zelda’s expression grew, if anything, even stonier. “A man who chooses to use _that_ name has no right to complain about impostors.”

“It’s _my_ name,” the man snapped - nearly snarled - and for a moment, his eyes flashed red. “And when I learn which demon has co-opted my image just to force some bit of jailbait into bed with him, there is going to be Hell to pay. Literally.”

The plan the Dark Lord - the one at the Gray Room, the one who’d told her- That plan had sounded a lot more involved than this man made it sound. But-

Sabrina wasn’t sure she believed him about being Lucifer. It was just...wrong. The Dark Lord should be something...more impressive than this, something more than a middle-aged man in a suit that bore all the marks of having been trudged through quite a lot of forest before he got to them, who’d probably taken off his shoes because even the Devil couldn’t traipse through the Greendale woods without getting blisters. 

But- Well. Weird as he was, unimpressive as he was...she’d take him over the Dark Lord she had met at the Gray Room. The embodiment of the pledge she had had forced on her at her Baptism, the Dark Lord who would demand to be first and foremost in her life, that her every waking moment be spent serving him and thinking of him and being his creature through and through. If there was a chance that anything this version was saying was true, that was a power they couldn’t afford to let lie.

“Prove it,” Sabrina said, looking the Devil dead in the eye.

Aunt Zelda let out a shocked gasp. “Sabrina-! You can hardly believe-”

The man’s mouth twisted into something sharp-edged and bitter that could only on the barest of technicalities be referred to as a smile, and then, all at once...there was a flare of light, just a glow, not enough to blind. Blinding would have been easier than this, watching the man’s - the Devil’s - human face slough away to reveal...the skin of his face was red-raw. Burned. Not the goatlike face of the thing Sabrina had seen in dreams. This was human, or...no, she could see the human face in it, the bones of his face were the same. But it was more than that - Sabrina had seen monstrosity before. The goat-headed Lord in her dreams had been terrible, the Plague Kings had been worse, and Batibat worst of all. But this-

She had no doubt, now, of who this was. But worse than that - a hundred, thousand, times worse - was the way it made her feel. Not repelled, not disgusted. He felt..familiar. As if she’d known him all her life. Something, in all that monstrousness, called out to her, and she could feel, somewhere at the heart of her, something calling _back_.

And then, all at once, his face was human again, his eyes as brown as Sabrina’s own rather than red and alight with dancing flames.

“That proof enough for you?” the Devil asked, dry as dust, and when Sabrina turned to look around at her aunts and Ambrose, Aunt Zelda had quite literally fallen to her knees, her mouth falling open, her eyes saucer-wide in shock.

“Dark Lord,” she breathed, and the expression on her face was terrible.

The Devil seemed to agree - he flinched back as if he’d been scalded, coming up hard against the gravestone at his back. “ _Don’t!_ Even start with that. I don’t know if there’s any bloody point in saying it at this point, since it’s clearly never stopped anyone yet, but the last thing I want from _anyone_ is their worship.”

Aunt Zelda stared. She did not, quite, gape, but it was a near-run thing. “But- My Lord, the whole foundation of the Church of Night, the Book of the Beast- What did you require from us, if not worship?”

“I don’t _require_ anything. Except a way back to LA and _that_ I can manage on my own.”

Sabrina snorted. She couldn’t quite help it.  
“What was the Devil doing in LA?”

“Sabrina,” Aunt Zelda hissed.

The Devil rolled his eyes. “Solving murders, usually. Unless nothing interesting has been going on lately. And you’ve got to admit, LA makes much more sense than my deciding to claw myself out of Hell for Bumfuck, New England.”

“Greendale,” Aunt Hilda corrected, automatically.

“No,” Ambrose put in, “I think he got it right the first time.”

“You’re the Devil,” Sabrina said, “And you’re telling me you’re- What, a PI in Los Angeles?”

The Devil waved a dismissing hand, “Nothing so formal. I run a nightclub, and occasionally do the odd bit of consulting work with the LAPD. Hell starts to get boring almost the moment it stops being torturous, so…” he shrugged. “I quit. I am, as of six years ago, officially retired as King of Hell.”

“But-” Sabrina swallowed. “But- If you’re the real Dark Lord-”

“Just call me Lucifer. It saves time and makes me sound a bit less like Voldemort.”

“-Then who was that at the Gray Room. And…” she swallowed, not wanting to meet her aunts’ or Ambrose’s eyes. “...and why did he claim to be my dad?”

The next few minutes were full of noise and confusion, as four people all attempted to demand what on earth she was talking about at once. The next few after that weren’t much of an improvement, as Sabrina laid out the conversation with the Dark Lord - the other Dark Lord, the _false_ Dark Lord - and the claims he’d made.

“...well,” Lucifer said the moment she’d finished. “That does absolutely nothing to answer the ‘who’s hijacking my image’ question, but it does, I suppose, make figuring out what they’re doing and where they’ll be doing it a rather higher priority for the rest of you. So, since we’re all interested in the same thing..”

“But-” That was Ambrose. “But it’s not true.Surely it can’t be true. Aunties-”

“Of course not,” Aunt Zelda said, getting slowly to her feet. She appeared...slightly more composed now than she had a moment ago, though there was a certain wild-eyed light about her that made Sabrina faintly nervous. “He’s the father of lies. This is but a fabrication.”

“...normally, I’d be offended by that,” Lucifer commented idly. “But since you aren’t _actually_ talking about me…”

Sabrina was beyond caring.

“Did- Did my father offer up my mother like a piece of meat? Or…was my mother a part of it?”

“Edward loved Diana, Sabrina,” Aunt Zelda said firmly, “Of that much, I am certain.”

It was so little, pitifully little, stacked against the reality of what Sabrina could do, the powers beyond what any witch or half-witch could dream of, and against the horrible cold certainty she’d felt at the Dark Lord’s words. As if she’d known all along, and only forgotten it.

“Edward and Diana...Spellman, I’m assuming?” That was Lucifer again. Sabrina wasn’t sure, at this point, that he was physically capable of leaving well enough alone. “So, _that’s_ where I knew the name from.”

The assembled Spellmans all blinked at him.

“You...knew my parents?” Sabrina asked, because she had to. She had to _know_.

“Well- Naturally,” Aunt Zelda said, drawing herself up like a hen resettling its feathers. “Edward was High Priest of the Church of Night. He- We were always led to believe he had a direct line to-”

“...no, don’t remember any of that,” Lucifer interrupted. “Tall man, beard, rather marvellous shoulders? I remember _him_. And Diana too, of course. Lovely couple. Very flexible.”

“I don’t…” Sabrina trailed off. “How- How did you know them?”

“Biblically,” Lucifer replied, with a wide, self-satisfied smile. Ambrose choked. Aunt Zelda made an awful sort of dry sputtering noise like a car that was only now realising it had run out of gas. Aunt Hilda...looked as if she’d just come to a realisation.

“...this- this...uh...liaison,” she said, in the soft-voiced, timid way she only used when she was quite certain of what the answer would be, and that she wouldn’t like it. “It...it started with a summons, didn’t it? Out of Hell? Since you’ve only been...out of the business...for five years, was it?”

“Six,” Lucifer corrected, “But close enough. And, yes, it did. Only way I ever got out, in the old days, though that was one of the more enjoyable occasions…”

“And it…” Aunt Hilda swallowed. “It was...seventeen years ago, or thereabouts? Before the plane crash?”

“Hard to say, exactly. Time moves more quickly in Hell. Easier to fit an eternity of torment in that way. But something like that. Might have been fifteen years. Or twenty. It all starts to...blur, after the first few centuries.”

“And...there was a ritual,” Aunt Hilda prodded.

Lucifer paused. “...I can’t say I noticed one,” he admitted. “I was...rather preoccupied.”

Because _that_ was a mental image Sabrina needed. At all. Ever.

“Right, but...there _was_ a ritual. I know. I helped prepare it.”

“Hilda!” Aunt Zelda gasped, looking appalled. “What are you babbling about? He was our _brother_!”

“Yes,” Aunt Hilda retorted, uncharacteristically sharp. “And _I_ was Diana’s midwife, if you remember. Me, not you. Sabrina-”

“...should I just wander off and critique the gravestones for a bit?” Lucifer said, to no-one in particular that Sabrina could tell. “Until the touching family stories are over with, and we can get on to the matter at hand?”

Aunt Hilda didn’t even seem to notice him as she caught Sabrina’s hands. "She was so happy, and so very proud, when she found out she was pregnant, because..."

"Because what? Auntie, please-"

"Because- Well, they really struggled to have a baby. So- So Edward suggested they go to the Dark Lord, and ask him to bless them with a child. And they- They did. I didn't know exactly what the ritual was going to entail..."

"Sex," Lucifer said helpfully. "Rather a lot of it. In quite creative positions. Those two had a very adventurous approach to the subject."

Aunt Hilda was blushing now. "Yes, well...whatever was actually involved..." Sabrina could've done with a bit more of a veil being drawn over that part of things herself. "Later, Diana came to me, and...and...she said she was worried about the baby - about you - and, erm...nervous, because she thought the baby wasn't Edward's."

Aunt Zelda was saying something now, but it all seemed miles distant as Sabrina looked around, and met Lucifer’s eyes. His dark brown eyes. As brown as her own. Edward Spellman, she remembered with a sudden, startling jolt, had been green-eyed. Diana’s eyes were blue. Lucifer Morningstar’s were the same warm brown as Sabrina’s own, in this shape. She saw the realisation flash across his face, and then-

There was no half-hearted weakening of the knees, no attempts to cushion the fall. He simply went from standing up to lying down in one smooth motion, toppling over in a dead faint.

* * *

Lucifer came to on a sofa with shouting going on somewhere nearby. This was not, in his opinion, the best possible way to start a period of consciousness, but he’d woken up in worse situations before. That one time he’d shifted into his devil face while in bed with Lilith in the earliest days of the world came to mind in particular.

Speaking of Lilith, she appeared to be the one getting shouted at, going by some of the accusations getting thrown around.

“-lied to me, possessed my _favourite_ teacher, lied to me _even more_ after you came clean about _that_ , schemed to bring about the Apocalypse, more or less pimped me out to someone claiming to be my _father_ and _now_ you’re claiming to be on our side?”

That was the girl- Sabrina. His daughter.

He had a daughter.

 _How_ did he have a daughter? Those rituals were supposed to have gone the way of the dodo millennia ago, around the same time that Mum had gotten pissy about the Host messing around on Earth and decided to drown half the Middle East. How _had_ Edward Spellman got hold of them?

Or- Was this just another manipulation from on high? Creating Chloe hadn’t been enough of a vulnerability for dear old Dad to exploit, oh, no. He’d made Lucifer a _father_. What was this, some ‘walk a mile in my shoes’ thing? An attempt to make him give in, after all these centuries without so much as a word?

Not in a million years, and with Lucifer’s lifespan, he could make sure _that_ was meant entirely literally. He groaned, and shifted a little, preparing to drag himself upright.

“He’s waking up!” called a nearer voice - young, male, British accent, and Lucifer opened his eyes.

The Spellmans’ living room was every bit as old-fashioned as the club, cluttered and dimly-lit and comfortable. Lucifer was lying on a long overstuffed velvet sofa, his suit jacket - spattered with crusted mud all up the back, as if it had been dragged through three puddles and a mire between him passing out and regaining consciousness - draped over the arm by his feet. Beyond it, Sabrina was on her feet and glowering at Lilith, still wearing the middle-aged woman she had been at the club, her aunts ranged protectively around her, or as protectively as they could range while ensconced in two large armchairs. From the look on Hilda’s sister’s face, that wouldn’t be too great an impediment.

“The sleeper awakes,” Lilith said, arching an eyebrow. The woman she was possessing had possessed remarkably good eyebrows for that. “Sabrina informs me,” she went on, “That you claim to be the true Dark Lord.”

Lucifer blinked. “Well, you hardly need to take her word for it,” he said, sitting up and trying not to wince as he took in the state of his trousers. “It hasn’t been that long since I last left the Pit, since I popped down for a visit just last week…”

Even to him, his cheerfulness on that last sentence sounded brittle, palpably false. From Lilith’s expression, it sounded pretty bad to her too.

“You don’t ‘pop down for a visit’ to _Hell_ ,” she said, contemptuous. “The real Dark Lord would know that.”

Lucifer growled. “I am getting very tired of people denying my identity. _You_ don’t even have the excuse of being human and not knowing any better. Maze sends her love, by the way.”

It was a cheap shot, and they both knew it - ‘love’ was the last thing Maze would ever want to send Lilith, if she’d known Lucifer was going to meet her at all - but it made Lilith go bloodless with fury.

“You dare?” she hissed, deadly soft. “After Mazikeen was lost to me, after everything I’ve lost, you _dare-_?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “You never cared two straws for Maze until she became my demon Friday, and we both know it. And as for ‘lost to you’...well, that was true _long_ before we left Hell.”

“I believe him.” That was Sabrina. Lucifer looked over at her. So did Lilith. “He showed us all his true face,” Sabrina went on, crossing her arms. “The other one never did. And he- It wasn’t just looking.”

“...no.” That was Hilda’s sister, the tall, thin, severe one of the family, who was sitting ramrod-straight in her armchair with her cigarette smouldering to ashes in its holder. “It wasn’t. I must agree with Sabrina. It was- An experience such as I have never imagined…”

“I get that a lot,” Lucifer agreed, trying to ignore the hungry, reverent look on her face. A divinity junkie. Just his luck. He _hated_ dealing with worshippers.

Lilith gave her a very flat look. “You think I - the first witch, the mother of demons - can’t tell the Morningstar when I see him?”

“I’m finding it a little hard to believe myself,” Lucifer put in, “I mean, you were my _first_. I wasn’t that forgettable, was I?”

Sabrina’s face scrunched up, in that distinctive ‘my parents are sexual beings and insist on talking about it’ way. It was- An unnervingly familiar expression, actually. He’d seen it in the mirror a few times, since Mother dearest started sleeping with Detective Douche.

That thought hit like a sledgehammer- His daughter. He’d had a daughter, this whole time. And he hadn’t known. He hadn’t even noticed the bloody ritual going on around him, or he’d never have agreed to the threesome in the first place.

What on Earth, Heaven or Hell was he supposed to do with that? He couldn’t- He was, he knew, the single worst-suited entity in this or any other universe to take care of _anything_. Even before Hell, he’d known what he was made for, and it wasn’t...care, or nurturing, or any of those things that were supposed to make a parent. Samael, ‘God’s poison’. That was what he had been. That was all he’d ever been designed for and...and why was he sitting here thinking about ‘designed for’, when he’d spent his whole eternal life doing everything he could to defy whatever part Dad had written out for him in this tawdry little passion play? 

Still...it’d help to know where to start. Dad hadn’t had to worry about this bit. Lucifer and all his siblings had been crafted out of the raw matter of creation and come into consciousness already knowing who He was, and who Mum was, and loving them. Sabrina didn’t have the first idea about Lucifer beyond whatever she’d heard from her little cult, and so far, Lucifer was not developing a terribly high opinion of the accuracy of their interpretation. Only one thing for it, it seemed.

“So…” he started, looking deliberately away from Lilith. “Sabrina, wasn’t it? I think we...might have quite a lot to talk about.”

Sabrina set her jaw, her head tipping very slightly to one side, assessing. “Yeah,” she said, still hostile. “Guess we do. Was this on purpose?”

“What, getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, having to tramp across several miles of wet forest to the ruin of an excellent pair of shoes and then-?”

“No. Me. Was I-”

“Well, I’d hardly have-”

“Fainted,” Hilda supplied, “Or swooned, I suppose we used to call it. Pity there wasn’t a fainting couch anywhere nearby, really.”

“ _Passed out_ ,” Lucifer finished, rather pointedly. “If I knew about you ahead of time, would I?”

“I don’t know! Nothing in any of the texts ever said anything about the Dark Lord-”

“Can we avoid that particular title? It makes me sound like the villain in a fantasy novel.”

“-turning up half-drunk outside my house and telling us that- that-”

“That your whole cult is founded on a pack of lies?” Lucifer shrugged. “Well, they wouldn’t, would they? Sort of undermines the point of having holy - or unholy, I suppose - writ.”

Hilda’s sister, already pale, went still paler at that. Her hand trembled, just a little, on the handle of her cigarette-holder. A true believer, then, one of those who lived and breathed their faith. She caught his eyes on her, though, and stiffened, her hand going still with what seemed to be a massive effort of will.

Sabrina frowned. “Ok. So...I was an accident?”

“No, no, I don’t doubt you were planned,” Lucifer said, his mouth curling up of its own accord. “Your aunt’s made that clear enough. I just wasn’t in on the planning.”

“You are seriously telling me that my mom and dad...what? Used the Devil to have a child? And this had nothing to do with any plans of yours to create an infernal-witch-mortal baby to pervert the Holy Trinity and usher in the apocalypse?”

Lucifer blinked. Well. That had gone to some unexpected places.

“Ok, we really don’t have time to unpack all that _and_ catch up with my impostor. But, cliffnotes version - I had no idea they were planning on getting children out of the whole production, and I’m definitely not interested in starting the apocalypse. I _like_ Earth.”

Lilith made a derisive noise. “You can’t trust him,” she said. “Lucifer - if we are to believe this is him, which I doubt - has been deceiving witchkind from the first. Isn’t that right?” 

Her eyes were fixed on his, flinty.

“I never lied to you!” Lucifer snapped.

“We both know you don’t need to directly lie to someone to deceive them. Or were you about to explain to poor little Sabrina that you love Earth so much, you want to move in full-time and unleash Hell upon this mortal world?”

“Oh, for- I _like_ Earth. The company’s better than in Hell, you actually get to _experience_ the pleasures of the flesh rather than watching from the sidelines, and the alcohol is better, and less likely to be laced with poison. I’ve been living here for six years now, and last time I checked, the world wasn’t ending. Not thanks to me, anyway.”

Lilith was already opening her mouth to retort, when Hilda’s sister pulled herself to her feet, only a little shakily. 

“We’re wasting time,” she said shortly. “Whatever the truth of the matter, the-”

“You can call _him_ the Dark Lord,” Lucifer supplied, when she seemed at a loss for how to go on. “I never liked that title anyway.”

“-the Dark Lord wants Sabrina, and he _will not_ have her.”

“That, I think we’re agreed on,” Sabrina said, her mouth twitching. “But- I don’t know that we can trust either of them to help us. You,” she nodded at Lilith, “Have done nothing but lie to me from the moment we met, and you,” a jab of a finger in Lucifer’s direction, “Are claiming to be the _father_ of lies. Not exactly something to build trust!”

Lucifer glared at her. “I am many things, witchling,” he said, a bite in his voice. “But a liar is not and has never been one of them.”

The young man in the corner, who seemed to have been trying to blend into the wall before, cleared his throat. “But ‘Father of Lies’ is one of your best-known epithets. It does...make it a little difficult to trust in your...um…”

“Well, I fail to see how I can prove my good intentions, since whatever I say is inevitably going to be dismissed as a lie anyway!” Lucifer snapped, before catching himself, and breathing in deeply. “I am...aware...of my reputation. Largely false though it may be. But can you at least believe that I don’t want to see my-” he couldn’t say it, and changed tack. “That when I find my impostor, he will _beg_ for the mercy of Hell.”

For using his name, Lucifer would have flayed him. For binding the souls of a cult in Lucifer’s name, he would have roasted him. For attempting to force Lucifer’s daughter into some pre-ordained role, Queen of Hell, wife and daughter to the King both...Lucifer had not yet heard of or devised any torture enough for that, but he was quite certain he could manage, given the motivation now before him.

Lilith smiled, wide. “Now, that is more convincing. Perhaps you even mean it. As for me,” she went on, looking straight at Sabrina. “You may not trust me, but I know the Dark Lord’s weaknesses. If you feel that is information you can do without…”

“No,” Sabrina said, her scowl darkening. “It isn’t. But if you aren’t sure it even is the real thing, how much use will that information be?”

“Anything that can kill me, there’s not much that can survive it,” Lucifer offered. “And if this is observation-based, it might give me some idea who’s wandering around having co-opted my image, and what the most...appropriate...thing to do to them is going to be.”

He was leaning towards dismemberment just at the moment, but he was open to new ideas.

“Although,” he added, glancing around at Lilith, “How did _you_ end up working for this little troll? That doesn’t sound anything like the Lilith I remember. Defying Dad and me both, creating the Lilim...you never were the type to follow orders. We were only tenuous allies at best all the time we were in Hell together. What’s so special about this one?”

Lilith’s eyes flicked downwards.

“...things...changed...after he was last cast down from Earth. After Mazikeen was killed, and Amenadiel tore the wings from his back, to keep him bound with us in the Pit forever.”

“...not what happened, but do go on.”

“We had been…tenuous allies, as you say, for a long time, but before that…”

Ah. That.

Carnal pleasure had been rather a new concept when Lucifer and Lilith first met. It had been new to _him_ , at any rate. Lilith had had a bit more experience, what with having just gone through the world’s first divorce and all. The female orgasm...had not yet been discovered, but it hadn’t taken long, even for Samael-not-yet-Lucifer, as he had been then, newly cast out and in pain and for the first time truly, shatteringly alone.

He hadn’t loved her, exactly - hadn’t been able to understand the concept of love, outside what had been within the Host, what he had lost, he had thought, forever. She hadn’t loved him, either, or so he’d always thought. He’d just been...there. Another cast-off, and one rather less opposed than Adam to the idea of letting her be on top when she felt like it.

“...after his return,” Lilith was saying now, and he realised he’d missed the explanations while he was busy reminiscing. “Things...changed. Began to...return to what they were before. Before Hell. I thought-” She broke off. “Well. It doesn’t matter what I thought. He meant to use me. I intend to repay him in kind for that, and for everything else.”

“...some demon took advantage of my absence to pose as me, and _nobody_ noticed?” Lucifer summarised. “...well, this has been a week of blows to my ego, and I can’t say I much care for it, but...hang on. You created most of the demons.”

“All of them,” Lilith agreed, with a faint, proud smile. 

“...which would logically include this one. Which would explain the incest fixation with Sabrina, but...shouldn’t you be able to tell? I realise that every demon in Hell is rather a lot to keep track of, but…”

“All the more reason to believe he is telling the truth,” Lilith retorted. “What do you claim happened, then, if not what I described?”

“I moved to LA, started a nightclub, met a detective and started solving murders. And Maze, by the way, is alive, well, and, last I heard, hunting down humans for money, which I think we can all agree is the ideal profession for her.”

Hilda’s sister made an affronted noise.

“Is that _all_?” she demanded.

Lucifer bristled. “It’s enough to keep me interested, which is all it really needs to be. I left Hell because I was _sick_ of playing into Dad’s grand plans. And, I am reliably informed, if you really want to rebel, you move to LA. You have to admit, it makes a much better place than Hell for people to divest themselves of unwanted spawn.”

He realised, to his annoyance, that he was avoiding Sabrina’s eyes.

“All that power,” the woman said wonderingly. “All that we have done...and you were content to set up some pit of debauchery and waste it all trying to live as a-”

“I didn’t do any of it just to please you! I don’t want your worship, I don’t need your judgement, and I don’t care about your sad little cult! If you’re disappointed, then find somebody else to worship! I’m sure I know plenty of people who’d _love_ the attention.”

The woman’s lips pressed together again in a tight, firm line. 

“...we’re wasting time,” Hilda said, still soft, still meek, but insistent. “The Dark Lord could be doing anything out there, so we should get a wiggle on before he does, all right? Come on, Zelda, it’s...it’s not as if we could’ve kept on as we were, given...circumstances…”

Zelda was stiff and still for a few long moments, her fingers working spasmodically at her cuff, her eyes glassy. Then she nodded, once, sharp. “Hilda’s right,” she said, “The Dark Lord is powerful, but not all-powerful. We can still keep him out.”

“And then what?” Sabrina demanded. “Stay locked away in here while he lays waste to Greendale, to the coven, to my _friends_? We need to find a way to fight back.” She looked straight at Lucifer, hard, and then at Lilith. “Can you give us one?”

* * *

Lucifer Morningstar was...not what Sabrina had expected.

She didn’t doubt that it was him, that he truly _was_ the Dark Lord, even if not the one she had seen in visions - she couldn’t sensibly explain why not, but she didn’t. That wasn’t the difficult part.

‘Dad’, to her, would always mean Edward Spellman, for all that he had died before she was really old enough to remember more of him than the scratch of his beard as he kissed her goodnight, the deep, rich timbre of his voice. That hadn’t changed when the Dark Lord had told her he was her father, and she hadn’t expected it to change now that another candidate had shown up. It hadn’t, really. Just-

It was the way he looked at her, when he didn’t think she could see him. Nervous and sidelong, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn’t quite figure out what.

Miss Wardwell- Lilith’s plan had met with a great deal of sarcastic commentary from him, on the subject of just how little any of those precautions would do against an _actual_ archangel, which hadn’t done anything for anyone’s confidence. He’d also managed to cadge a packet of Aunt Zelda’s cigarettes while they were distracted with preparations, and Aunt Zelda hadn’t said a word. Sabrina thought she was still in shock.

And now they were trudging off through the woods to confront the Dark Lord, to the sound of Lucifer bitching under his breath about the state of his suit. Aunt Hilda had done her best, but there was only so much could be done, and the suit was clearly a dead loss.

“-what did you do, find a puddle to throw me in to try and wake me up?”

“Well, you see, none of us could really lift you, but we couldn’t just leave you outside, and since you’d fainted into the mud anyway-”

“...could you not mention that part in future? The whole passing out thing? I’ll never hear the end of it if anyone I know finds out.”

Sabrina snorted. “You mean the part where you swooned like the heroine in a Victorian novel?” she asked, dropping back to fall into step beside Lucifer and Aunt Hilda.

“I don’t _swoon_ , hellion.”

“Was it some other Lucifer Morningstar I caught day-drinking straight from the bottle on a gravestone?”

“I lost my shot glass somewhere in the woods.” He scowled up at the trees as if holding a personal grudge against each and every one of them for the loss, but then his eyes flicked to Sabrina again. For a moment, he looked almost uncertain. It was not an expression she could have imagined on the Dark Lord’s face. Aunt Hilda, on Lucifer’s other side, caught Sabrina’s eye and peeled away to walk beside Aunt Zelda, a little way ahead.

Sabrina swallowed. “...what would you have done, if you’d known about me all along?”

Lucifer didn’t look at her. “I don’t know. I never- None of this was ever _meant_ to happen.” He snorted. “I mean, look at me. I wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice as a parent, unless they were on some _very_ good drugs.”

“But now you’re here...what next?”

His eyes flicked to her again, sidelong, then he turned and met her eyes squarely. “Well...that’s on you. What do you truly desire from me, Sabrina?”

What _did_ she want from him? Help defeating the Dark Lord, she guessed, but by the sound of things he was going to do that anyway. She didn’t….she didn’t need another parent. She had her aunts, and that had always been enough for her. She didn’t remember enough about her parents to miss them, not really, though she’d always wished she could have known them. She hadn’t wanted anything at all from the Dark Lord, after everything he’d put her through. Lucifer...she didn’t know him. She didn’t know a thing about him beyond what he’d said himself.

But-

He was....real, somehow, in a way the Dark Lord hadn’t been. A person, maybe not of flesh and blood, but real enough that you could talk to him, and feel you were getting a response. Who’d fainted when he found out she was his- what they were to each other, and stole Aunt Zelda’s cigarettes and got into a snit over ruining his suit. A person she might get to know, if she wanted.

“...this isn’t an attempt to get me to sell my soul, is it?”

Lucifer frowned at her. “What would I do with such a useless item as a soul? Yours or anyone else’s.”

“I don’t know. What does the Dark Lord do with them?”

“Nothing, probably. You can’t...buy and sell souls, it doesn’t work like that. Which way you go after you die, that’s in no-one’s control but yours. If you feel you need to be punished for something you’ve done, you go downstairs, if you don’t, you go up. It’s that simple.”  
Sabrina frowned. “What if- What if you feel guilty for something that wasn’t your fault? Or- Who doesn’t feel any guilt about anything at all except sociopaths?”

“That is the problem,” Lucifer agreed. “Sometimes, if the thing someone feels guilty about, the automatic torments, don’t seem enough for what they’ve done, the demons will take it in hand themselves. Most of the really awful souls don’t feel guilty for their worst crimes, but there’s always something - cheating on their wives, turning on their friends...the usual range of petty mortal sins. But, yes, plenty of people go to Heaven despite some pretty awful crimes because they just don’t have the capacity for guilt. The system’s broken, but that’s nothing new.”

Sabrina considered that. “And...and that’s why he asks...the things he does, right? All the...signing your name in the Book of the Beast and devotions and rituals...he’s...making sure we have regrets? So that…”

“Please try and remember I don’t know anything about your rituals? And I hardly think Dad would make a big fuss over a lot of chanting and the occasional orgy in the ordinary run of things…”

“It’s not...it’s not just orgies.” Sabrina bit her lip.

“...now I’m curious. What does he want you to do?”

“He had me steal a pack of gum once?” Sabrina said, shrugging. “Which- It was such a stupid little request. Do demons even chew gum? Do you?”

“It’s not my vice of choice, no. Is that it?”

“No, next time he called on me he had me burn my high school down. I said no!” Sabrina added hastily. “Only- My familiar. Salem, he- he got sick. And I knew it had to be the Dark Lord, I knew it was because I’d refused him-”

“So you burnt your school to the ground?” Lucifer actually sounded faintly impressed.

“He hurt my _cat_ ,” Sabrina said, through gritted teeth. “Just to get me to go along with his plan. My _cat_.”

“Not what you’d call subtle, is he?”

“How would you have gone about it, then?”

“I wouldn’t.” Lucifer shrugged. “My job was to be a _punisher_ of evil, not its source. I was made for that before Dad ever kicked me out.”

“So- So all those witches who signed the Book of the Beast and felt guilt for participating in the Church’s rituals...you tortured them too?”

“Yes, if these rituals merited special attention.” He was staring fixedly ahead now. “It was a job. And I was good at it.”

Sabrina swallowed. “So...my father…I mean, Edward Spellman…”

“I’ve never seen him down there, but Hell’s a big place. Even I couldn’t keep track of all the damned.”

It was almost worse than getting a certain answer would be, and that was why Sabrina believed it.

“So,” Lucifer went on, “Having established that I have no use for your soul…what do you want? From me specifically, not in general. Although...that too, I suppose. It hardly makes up for sixteen years of missed birthdays, I know, but…”

She hadn’t expected him to care about missed birthdays. Or anything else, for that matter.

“It’s cool.” She shrugged. “You didn’t know, I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“It is _not_ cool. Can’t you think of anything? Trip to Disneyland? Your body-weight in chocolate? _Anything_?”

A note of pleading had crept into his voice, and Sabrina glared at him.

“Are you trying to _buy_ me?”

“What? No, I just-” he broke off with an odd huff of laughter. “This is…a very new situation for me.”

Sabrina snorted. “You think this is weird for _you_ ? I just found out my biological father is the _Devil_. And Auntie Zee just found out that the guy she’s been worshipping all these centuries is a snarky peacock who neither knows nor cares that she worships him. I think the only person who’s not having a breakdown right now is Aunt Hilda.”

“Mm. There’s a woman who’s good to know in a crisis. Speaking of which, how far away is this altar?”

“Not far,” said Lilith, ahead, turning to face them. “The Dark Lord is near. Sabrina...you should go on alone.”

“You’re sure this is the plan you want to follow?” Lucifer asked. “Because I’m quite willing to rip this impostor apart by myself, if you’d rather-”

“No.” Sabrina swallowed. “No. I can’t- I can’t have other people fight my battles for me.”

“This isn’t _just_ your battle…”

“I don’t care.”

Lucifer huffed in exasperation. “Waiting in the wings to deal with him once he’s distracted it is, then. You _do_ realise that you’re powerless right now?”

“I noticed.”

“And that _everyone_ here is more than capable of handling some demon with delusions of grandeur…”

“I _know_ that!” Sabrina threw up her hands. “It’s not- This is- something I have to do. For myself. And if you actually meant any of that ‘free will’ talk, you’d let me!”

Lucifer looked, for a moment, as if she’d slapped him, and his eyes were furious.

“Fine,” he said, not cold exactly, but...distant. Removed. “Do what you need to.”

Sabrina nodded. “That’s the plan. Aunties- If this doesn’t work.”

“I know, love,” Aunt Hilda said, stepping up at her right hand to draw Sabrina into a hug. Sabrina clung back, desperately, her throat tight. If this didn’t work- If she’d put her trust in the wrong people- If she’d guessed wrong-

No help for that now. The altar waited.

Even knowing that the others were close behind, would be at her side the moment she gave the signal, wasn’t enough to stop cold dread from creeping up her spine as she drew closer.

The altar was stone, all through, great slabs of it bound crudely together, ancient and blood-soaked and terrible. There was no sign of the Dark Lord, as Sabrina reached the altar, and curled her fingers tight around the horseshoe in her pocket.

Lucifer - the real one, or at least the one she thought was real - had been incredulous at that part of the plan. Another thing they’d all thought they knew, proved wrong.

She waited.

It was another few minutes before she heard the crunch of foliage underfoot, and a voice behind her.

“Sabrina. You came.”

The voice was…not entirely wrong, she had to admit. Still deep, and the accent was right - why did the Devil sound British anyway? She hadn’t exactly expected him to sound American either, but if he was going to have an earthly accent at all, she hadn’t expected that one.

“Turn and face Me, My daughter,” the voice said. _Putting people’s pronouns in capital letters,_ Sabrina remembered Lucifer saying, and had to bite back a sudden, hysteric burst of laughter.

Flatter him, she reminded herself. Keep his eyes on you. She turned.

He still frightened her. But not as much as he had. He seemed...smaller, now. She could almost laugh at him. Almost.

Appeal to his ego, that was what Lilith had said. If Aunt Zelda could pretend to still be under the Caligari spell, could go back to Father Blackwood and play the part of perfect housewife that his spell had forced her into, all to set Ambrose free, then Sabrina could play this part, with the whole world to play for.

“As you wish, my lord and father,” she said formally, and only a little stiff - but that was right, wasn’t it? She _would_ be stiff, if this were real, if she were truly surrendering.

He made an odd contrast with Lucifer’s current state of dishevelment, immaculate in a long golden coat, left open to make it clear that shirts were apparently not in the Dark Lord’s priority list. There was nothing but open hunger in his face.

“Today,” he said, “We sound Gabriel’s horn to unlock the Gates of Hell.” He smiled as Sabrina took first one halting step, and then another. “Do you still have your doubts?”

“No, my lord,” she said. That part, at least, was truthful. She had never doubted him, because doubt was questioning belief, and she had never truly believed in him either. “I-” her voice caught, but she pressed on. “Put myself in your thrall. Willingly.”

His smile was wide and satisfied as he spread his hands before him.

“Then kneel, daughter.”

Sabrina slid her hand into her pocket, feeling for the horseshoe, as she slid to one knee. 

“Dark Lord,” she said, lingering over the words. “Lucifer Morningstar…father.” She kept her gaze low, watching his feet, one human, one cloven, as she forced the last words out. “I praise thee,” she said, flat, and brought down the horseshoe, pinning his cloven hoof to the ground.

She had expected that he would scream. He didn’t. He doubled over, even as she scrambled away and to her feet.

“Sabrina,” he growled, his voice rasping over the syllables.

She grinned, showing teeth. “Just a little trick I learnt from St Dunstan,” she hissed, and then- “Ambrose!”

He materialised out of the air, the iron bar sparking into fiery life as he swung again and again, sending the Dark Lord reeling back, caught in place by the horseshoe pinning him down, unable to retreat. Already, though, the Dark Lord was straightening again, and as he stretched out his hand, the fires running the length of the bar sputtered and died.

Almost as soon as it had, though, her aunts appeared behind the Dark Lord, running at him, the daggers Lilith had given them - forged in the ancient city of Megiddo, Lilith had said, which should give them some advantage - clutched tight in their hands. 

As the daggers plunged in, there was a crack of thunder, and all at once the Dark Lord’s human face was gone, as quick as if as switch had been flipped, and the familiar goat-headed figure from Sabrina’s dreams stood there as her aunts staggered back, giving a roar that seemed to shake the whole forest. Sabrina was already scrambling desperately away, wondering frantically where Lucifer had got to, and whether he might have taken offence, taken her order as a reason to stay where he was and not interfere either way-

And then the Dark Lord reached up, pulling the blades from his back, and the human face- just a shell now, Sabrina realised, a pretty coat of paint over rotten wood - flickered back into place.

“Well-planned, but fruitless,” he said, turning to face them. “Only the Spear of Longinus could kill Me.”

The daggers made no sound as they flew through the air, though it seemed as though they should. Something metallic, hissing and screeching. They came to a stop just resting against Sabrina’s aunts’ throats.

“Wait!” Sabrina threw herself forward, interposing herself between her aunts and the Dark Lord as if- as if it could possibly make any difference. Where was Lilith? Where was Lucifer? They’d abandoned them. Ambrose rushed to follow, but with one lazy gesture from the Dark Lord, was thrown back, sent sprawling beside the aunts.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” the Dark Lord went on, “You are, after all, My daughter…”

“I am _not_ your daughter,” Sabrina spat, feeling the tears prick at her eyes. How could she have trusted again, so blindly?

The Dark Lord went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “And I had wanted to keep things civil, but if blood must be shed…”

The daggers inched a little closer, one drawing a bead of blood where it rested at Aunt Zelda’s throat.

“Please,” Sabrina forced out. “Please don’t…”

“Or,” the Dark Lord went on, tipping his head in the direction of the altar, “You can pick up Gabriel’s horn…”

“Oh, is this Gabriel’s?” said a voice behind him. “You know, I do believe it is. How _did_ you get your hands on _this_ , Baphomet?”

The Dark Lord froze. Sabrina looked past him.

Lucifer was sitting on the altar, the horn of Gabriel sitting in his lap. He grinned brightly at them all, and waved.

“You know,” he said, looking over the horn. “I’m really more of a string and percussion instrument sort of person myself. And really, only a very few string instruments. You would not, for instance, catch me anywhere _near_ a harp. Not that Gabriel was ever exactly musical. There’s only so much you can do with ‘fanfare’. Now. Put the daggers down - somewhere _other_ than in the ladies’ throats - and I might consider killing you quickly.”

“...not what you’d call a gracious offer, is it?” the Dark Lord - Baphomet - said, but there was something off about his voice. For the first time, the smug self-assurance that had underlain every word was gone. He’s afraid, Sabrina realised, not sure whether she wanted to exult in it or whether she resented that someone else had been the cause. All this time, all this trouble, and she’d needed rescuing after all.

“I’m not in an especially gracious mood. The knives. Now.”

Baphomet sneered. “You say that,” he said, though his voice still sounded faintly shaky. “But in the old days, you wouldn’t have bothered with threats. The angel was right. You really have gone soft up here.”

Sabrina didn’t see Lucifer move. One moment he was sitting on the altar, the next he was standing, his hand at Baphomet’s throat, and Baphomet’s feet were kicking helplessly as he was lifted off the ground.

“I have reached the end of my patience, Baphomet,” he snarled. “And I didn’t have much of it to begin with. You have deserted Hell without leave. You have bound souls to yourself and to Hell in my name. You have usurped the throne of Hell and attempted to use _my daughter_ to gain the strength to hold it. Now, any one of those things would be reason enough to kill you. What do you think I’ll do for all four of them? Drop. The knives.”

For a moment, Sabrina didn’t think it would work. Then the knives fell to the ground with two soft thuds muffled by leaves.

Lucifer didn’t seem to deign to notice. “I presume,” he went on, still lightly, but with a bite in his voice. “That you’d be where the goat thing comes from? How long?”

Baphomet grinned, wide and satisfied. “ _Centuries_.”

Lucifer’s eyes widened, manic, and Sabrina swallowed.

“If- If that was what happened...if it was always you...why did my parents’ ritual summon Lucifer, and not you?”

“Because it was meant to!” Baphomet’s eyes were on her again, greedily taking in every detail. It was an awful sort of look. It reminded her of the night of her Dark Baptism, stripped to her shift before the whole coven and asked to sign her name. Or, worse, of the trial, when Father Blackwood had proposed to strip her on the stand and examine her for a witch’s mark, to prove the Dark Lord’s possession of her. Baphomet watched her the way Blackwood and the Unholy Three had watched her then, as if his gaze were a physical thing, as if to look at her was to touch.

“Edward always created his own rituals,” Aunt Zelda said, slowly. “And- Church of Night doctrine has always forbidden the direct summoning of the Dark Lord…”

“That’s one thing you got right, then. I can’t be constantly getting dragged away from my life because some witch somewhere wants something.” Lucifer smiled, thin and vicious. “How long have you been plotting my overthrow, Baphomet? I’d hate to think my retirement spoiled your plans.”

Sabrina stared at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Only an angel can rule Hell,” Lucifer said, glancing down at her. “It’s sort of a built-in feature. Used to be me, then Amenadiel took a turn, though he seemed to spend more time on Earth harassing me than dealing with things in the Pit, and now...I do believe there’s a vacancy.”

“...and if I’m your daughter...that makes me…” Sabrina’s eyes widened. “That- That’s what the plan was? Why you were so keen to have me sign the Book of the Beast, why you wanted me…because without me...you can’t even rule Hell on your own, can you?”

He was so small, she saw now. Not a god, not the unknowable, malevolent force that had dogged her since her sixteenth birthday. Just a petty monster, whose only real power lay in convincing others that they were even smaller than he.

He spat at her, and she stepped aside, even as Lucifer’s hand tightened at Baphomet’s throat.

“Sabrina,” he said, as casual as if he were asking her to pass the salt. “Could you fetch that horseshoe? I _am_ going to need him pinned for what comes next.”

* * *

You never really did lose the knack for torture. Not where it counted. What you lost was the stomach, the ability to hold yourself at a distance and enjoy the intellectual exercise of figuring out what stimuli would break a person most quickly.

Despite his threats, Lucifer finished with Baphomet quickly.

It felt...different. Or rather, it felt just the same as it always had, in Hell, when he’d snuffed out one demon or another who had attempted to rise up against him and claim the throne of Hell for their own. After Uriel...after Hell, and that terrible loop...he’d expected it to feel more significant than it did.

Perhaps it was only the force of Sabrina’s eyes on him. Judging. Or perhaps it was only that only one answer really mattered. The horn. Where did a demon get a thing like that?

If Baphomet was to be believed, it had been an accident. The horn had simply fallen into his lap, hoarded away by one of the various churches and stolen by another of his cult, ready for the end of the world. It was a very _neat_ answer, and Lucifer didn’t like it. Celestial objects didn’t just end up on Earth without _some_ reason.

There were other things, too. Like Baphomet’s newfound immunity from conventional means of binding demons, the vulnerabilities not shared by others of the Lilim - being able to torture someone with onions was a new one even on Lucifer. As if- As if the sheer force of mortal certainty were changing him, all by itself. Was it possible? And if it were...might Lucifer find himself similarly afflicted, without Baphomet there to absorb it.

“And the Church?” Sabrina had demanded. “The Church of Night? How did you end up-?”

That answer, too, was simple. Lucifer hadn’t been taking their offerings, so Baphomet had, and if they had used Lucifer’s true name so rarely that Baphomet had just stepped straight into the gap. It was quite revoltingly simple. And there were more groups like this, all across the world, more worshippers, and while mortal Satanists were harmless enough, using his name to justify petty rebellions against a status quo that didn’t suit them and more than half of them ended up going upstairs in the end anyway, the Church of Night was something else altogether.

Baphomet did not look remotely human now, pinned to the altar with the iron horseshoe at his throat, horned and goatlike and looking...quite alarmingly like the statue Lucifer had seen during that one case with the satanists a few months back. Which at least explained where they’d got the idea from.

“Are we going to finish it?” Sabrina said, deadly calm. Was she supposed to be this calm? He couldn’t imagine the spawn being so, or Chloe, but witches were always difficult to predict.

“There doesn’t seem to be much more we can learn from him,” Lucifer said, noncommittally.

He was expecting her to suggest that they let him go - perhaps not entirely, but a binding spell, some trap or configuration that would hold Baphomet...he’d expected her to ask for that.

She didn’t.

“Good,” she said, and pulled the Megiddo dagger out from where it pinned Baphomet at the shoulder. She brought it down on Baphomet’s chest, and the demon’s body twisted, and was still. For a moment, Sabrina was still, staring down at the corpse. Then she looked down at her hand and slowly unclenched her fingers, letting the dagger fall.

“Sabrina?” Lucifer said carefully, watching her. “...are you…?”

Was she what? All right? She _had_ just killed Baphomet, which wouldn’t have meant much to Lucifer at this stage, but probably should mean something to her. But they’d _come_ out here to kill Baphomet, and Sabrina hadn’t seemed at all averse to the idea then.

“Fine,” Sabrina said, just a little too brightly. “We...should get back to the house, or- Where’s Lilith?”

“Here.”

Lilith stepped out from behind a tree, looking considering. “I thought it best to stay out of sight, in case things went against us.”

“...you wanted to claim to have been loyal to whoever won,” Lucifer surmised. He couldn’t even be that angry about it. It would’ve been the most expedient thing to do for self-preservation’s sake, and Lilith always made the smart move. “Now. That mortal school teacher you’re wearing…”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “I’ll let her go. I didn’t want to linger in this mortal shape any longer than I had to, I _assure_ you. But- It would be foolish of me not to demand something in return. After all, you have just killed one of my children. Or so it transpires.”

Her children, which she had taken so little interest in that she hadn’t noticed when one of them started sleeping with her while claiming to be Lucifer, he wanted to point out, but bit back on the impulse just in time.

“What you can demand in return is that I forget this ever happened _instead_ of hunting you through the Nine Circles for defying my command.”

Lilith smirked. “Tempting...but Baphomet wasn’t entirely wrong, was he? Life up here is changing you, _my lord._ Can you tell me you would have wasted breath getting him to spare these...charming...sisters, when you still ruled in Hell?” she paused for a moment to let that sink in, and went on. “There remains the matter of the crown.”

Lucifer blinked. “Oh. That.”

Ambrose Spellman looked from Lilith to Lucifer and back again. “I...thought you said only an angel could rule Hell,” he said slowly. “Is that not…”

“That’s why he wanted me in the first place,” Sabrina agreed, sounding miles distant from it all. “Or why go to all that trouble just for one half-witch?”

“It is true,” Lucifer said, “At least...so I had always been given to believe.”

Lilith snorted. “Baphomet has ruled Hell in your name since Amenadiel left Hell to return you to your proper place,” she said scathingly. “Quite convincingly. If I return now, and say that you have...oh, decided to seclude yourself, say, and that I, as your consort and Queen of Hell, shall henceforth carry out your will…”

“You can do that without my permission, surely.”

Lilith spread her hands. “For the time being, certainly, but, upon your return…”

“There isn’t going to _be_ a return!” Lucifer snapped. “I’m _retired_ , Lilith. The last time I was in Hell, I ended up in a loop of my own. I’d call that a pretty clear sign that I’m out of a job downstairs!”

He’d spoken in anger, and unwisely, and he regretted it the moment he saw the widening smile spread across Lilith’s face.

“...is that possible?” Zelda demanded. “You- _You_ were tortured? In Hell?”

“It was a brief aberration,” Lucifer said through his teeth. “I escaped.”

“But it trapped you.” Lilith’s smile grew wider still. “You feel regret. _Guilt_ . Now, that _is_ a change I hadn’t expected, in you.”

“ _Lilith_ …”

She raised a hand. “Oh, I’ll surrender the mortal,” she said, smiling wide. “It seems that claiming Hell will not be nearly as difficult as I had foreseen.”

Sabrina snorted. “What was it you said to me, again? All women are taught to fear their own power…”

“Dad _does_ have his problems with assertive women,” Lucifer said blandly. Just look at what happened to Mum. Or Lilith herself, for that matter.

“A lesson I had sadly forgotten.” Lilith clucked her tongue. “And with the Dark Lord dead...at your hand, no less....I have a gift for you, Sabina Spellman.”

She leant down, and pressed a kiss to Sabrina’s forehead, just between the eyes. “I restore to you all your witch abilities. May you enjoy both power and freedom, and may you never give up either again. You will do magnificently, Sabrina. I’ll see you in Hell.”

She fell backwards, her eyes rolling back in her head, and Ambrose caught her before she hit the ground.

“...she’ll be confused when she wakes up,” Hilda said, coming over to look down into the woman’s face. “We should get her back to ours, make sure she’s comfortable. Do you know if she likes tea, Sabrina- Sabrina? Are you all right, my love?”

For a moment, Sabrina didn’t reply. She curled her fingers experimentally, and a flame danced in the palm of her hand. A slow, wicked grin spread across her face. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m _great_.”

* * *

Of course, it was one thing to defeat...not really the Devil, as Lucifer was all too happy to make clear, and he took offence at ‘something close enough’ too, but the powerful, evil force that had been manipulating almost your whole life, in some cases for centuries...but once the job was done, you did still have to live in the wreckage.

“So,” Ambrose said, looking down at Miss Wardwell’s slack, unconscious face. “What now? The Church of Night...it’s over, isn’t it?”

Aunt Zelda was trying and failing to pretend that her hands weren’t shaking as she lit another cigarette. “No. Not nearly over. The Dark Lord was unworthy of our worship, but he was an impostor, and now that we know the truth-”

“Leave me out of this!” Lucifer put in. 

Aunt Zelda spluttered. “But- My lord...the whole Church of Night was founded in your name, to follow your commandments, whatever they may be. We may, I admit, have been led astray, but surely that does not make the whole institution unworthy-”

“Debatable, but not really the point. Commandments are much more Dad’s thing than mine, as I keep explaining, or, if you want them,” he went on hastily, as Aunt Zelda opened her mouth to protest. “Start with this one. Worship _nothing_. Not me, and not your little hierarchies either. Spread the word. No more worship, and no more using my name to justify things. Unless I am right there next to you, telling you to do something, assume I’m not demanding it of you. That a bit more doable?”

Aunt Zelda looked as if she had swallowed a lemon, but the habit of centuries of obedience wasn’t an easy way to drink.

“Perfectly, Dark Lord,” she said formally.

Lucifer grimaced. “...just Lucifer. ‘Lord’ makes me think of my father.”

Aunt Zelda’s mouth worked furiously, but she nodded.

“We- Should get back to the mortuary. The rest of the Church of Night must be told-”

The thought of Father Blackwood’s face upon being told that the Dark Lord he had used as an excuse for so many of his ideas, his reversions to older, bloodier traditions, had been an impostor all along, and that the real thing was here, and also Sabrina’s father, was almost enough to make Sabrina come along herself, but-

“Wait,” she said. “My friends...I sent them into the mines. To try and find the Gates. We had a plan, to keep them from opening- I should find them.”

Ambrose nodded. “Well, we can easily get your teacher home, though,” he added, “She is going to have a lot of questions we’re going to need to answer when she wakes up.”

“Better that than letting her wake in the middle of the woods and wander back to town to find she’s missing months’ worth of memories,” Aunt Zelda said tightly. “Hilda, Ambrose…”

Sabrina had half-expected Lucifer to leave with them, but he didn’t. Instead, he fell into step at her side, without a word.

It felt suddenly awkward, now that there was no world-ending threat to deal with. Being the Antichrist was all well and good, but one thing it was never supposed to involve was any sort of personal relationship with the Dark Lord. Somehow, people had always made it sound more like Church of Night membership with extra duties - visions, ominous portents, demanded acts of devotion. Not...walking through a wood and trying to come up with something sensible to say to your biological father, who was also the Prince of Darkness, who had just unexpectedly come into your life. They didn’t do self-help guides for this sort of thing. Sabrina probably wouldn’t even have bought one if they did, since the maximum number of Antichrists was, by definition, one, so where would the author be getting their information from?

“You never did answer my question,” Lucifer said, breaking the silence.

“Which one?”

“What do you want from me?”

“...is that a serious question?”

Lucifer shrugged. “If you tell me you want to forget any of this ever happened, I’ll go back to Vegas as soon as I can be out of your hair.”

“Vegas? I thought you said you were in Los Angeles?”

“I _live_ in LA. But I was in Vegas when your prophecy came through, and my car's probably still there.”

Sabrina considered it. It was a tempting offer. She could just...forget. Pretend none of this ever happened, go back to the same old life, except- Well. Except a whole new list of questions had just opened up in front of her - the truth about the Church of Night, and the doctrines on which it was founded, her powers, the limits of which she was still feeling out, and...he couldn’t replace Edward Spellman, but if he wasn’t planning to end the world, Sabrina didn’t think she’d mind getting to know her biological father a little better either.

“...and if I don’t want that?”

A very long pause, and then. “...I don’t think anyone’s ready to talk split-custody arrangements yet, and the pick-up and drop-off handover might be a bit tricky…”

“I’m sixteen, not six,” Sabrina said irritably. “I can travel fine on my own. And I wasn’t asking to move in with you or anything, but…I want to know more? We could...I don’t know, do visits?”

He was eyeing her now as if she were an unexpected and potentially poisonous snake.

“Visits?”

“Yes. That’s what I want. One summer’s visit. At the end of that…” Sabrina shrugged, affectedly casual. “We can renegotiate.”

A long, considering pause, and then: “It’s a deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> So...this one was heavy on the dialogue. Sorry about all that - action scenes, I cannot write them, and I tend to write a lot of talking.  
> Also - wow, poor Zelda is having the single worst week of her life. I'm sorry to make it worse for her here, since she's probably my favourite Sabrina character, but it worked for the POV and the scene.  
> Also - yes, the canonical mass-poisoning subplot is going on in the background - Hilda, Zelda and Ambrose get back in time for Prudence to arrive and ask for help, and that part of the plot plays out much the same way.  
> I only regret that I could not set Lucifer on Father Blackwood. That would be entertaining.  
> EDIT: Some minor edits have been made, now that I have further information on how old the siblings Spellman are.


End file.
